Highchair injuries up; defects are a concern

Misti Crane, The Columbus Dispatch

Monday

Dec 9, 2013 at 12:01 AMDec 9, 2013 at 9:34 AM

Parents with highchairs in the house should make sure the seat hasn't been recalled and be vigilant about strapping their kids in and keeping an eye on them, safety advocates say. Highchair injuries were responsible for an average of 9,400 visits to pediatric-emergency departments each year from 2003 to 2010, according to a study published online today in Clinical Pediatrics.

Parents with highchairs in the house should make sure the seat hasn’t been recalled and be vigilant about strapping their kids in and keeping an eye on them, safety advocates say.

Highchair injuries were responsible for an average of 9,400 visits to pediatric-emergency departments each year from 2003 to 2010, according to a study published online today in Clinical Pediatrics.

The number of visits increased by more than 22 percent during the study period, and many of the children were seen for head injuries, according to the research, which was led by Dr. Gary Smith, director of the Center for Injury Research and Policy at Nationwide Children’s Hospital.

In almost all cases, the child was injured in a fall. In most cases where the researchers knew the circumstances, the children were climbing or standing on the chair. The data came from a national database of injuries that is operated by the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission.

Misuse of chairs is a concern, as are problems with the chairs themselves, Smith said.

About 3.5 million chairs have been recalled in recent years for defects, including faulty restraint bars, weak plastic joints that can cause collapse and belts that can’t be tightly secured.

“This is a product that parents are really buying to keep their child safe, and yet it often is itself involved in the injuries,” said Nancy Cowles, the executive director of the Chicago-based group Kids in Danger.

Even when chairs are safe, parents should take care with them, she said. Children can go “very quickly from sitting meekly to working very hard to get out of a highchair.”

For some children who are particularly opposed to being contained, Cowles said it might make more sense to put them in a chair that is closer to the ground.

“There are just some children who are little Houdinis,” she said.

Smith said his team couldn’t come up with an explanation for the increase in emergency-department visits during the study period. Factors could include an increase in faulty chairs and heightened awareness of head injuries, he said.

Smith recommends checking for recalls on www.recalls.gov. In a best-case scenario, only about 10 to 20 percent of products come back after a recall, and many parents use chairs for more than one child, he said.

It can also be helpful to look for a Juvenile Products Manufacturers Association sticker on the packaging when buying a chair, Smith said. The agency allows its logo on products that meet current safety guidelines.

For more information on recalls and product safety, visit www.recalls.gov, the Juvenile Products Manufacturers Association at www.jpma.org and Kids in Danger at www.kidsindanger.org.

mcrane@dispatch.com

@MistiCrane

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